


been this way for a long long while

by plingo_kat



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Blow Jobs, M/M, john wick fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:53:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29730000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plingo_kat/pseuds/plingo_kat
Summary: “Are you goddamn kidding me,” John manages. “All this mess over a goddamndog?”
Relationships: John Marston/Arthur Morgan
Comments: 10
Kudos: 34





	been this way for a long long while

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the end notes from chapter 5 of [All of Them Wolves](https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/17074208/chapters/40191275#chapter_5_endnotes), which talked about an RDR2/John Wick fusion.
> 
> Title from Seasick Steve's "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" lyrics.  
>  _Been this way for a long long while  
>  There ain't nothing that I got to fix  
> You can't teach an old dog new tricks_

John hears about it over his monthly drink with Sadie in Valentine’s Continental, a hushed conversation that catches his attention due to the strained tones of the speakers.

“Repeat that, friend?” he says, leaning over. Flips a coin to the bartender, who wordlessly pours two fingers of top-notch bourbon into a glass, straight.

“Arthur Morgan’s back in the game,” says the stranger, accepting the bourbon and throwing back damn near the whole drink in one shot. “Stormed through Six Point and left twenty dead behind him. Heard he’s gunning for a particular man associated with the O’Driscolls.”

And that hooks Sadie. “The O’Driscolls?”

Meanwhile John’s got an entire different focus. “Arthur Morgan? Van der Linde’s Wolf, Arthur Morgan?”

“Yeah,” says the stranger before squinting at the right side of John’s face. “Oh shit, you’re John Marston, aren’t you?”

“That’s me,” John agrees. “Sadie, I gotta go.”

Sadie waves him away, converting the motion to call the bartender over again. She’s already leaning forward with a dangerous smile on her face. “Tell me about how Morgan’s got beef with them O’Driscolls.”

John hurries off. Another coin gets him to the telegraph cubicles, where he scribbles a note and places it into the outbound tray; a slender-fingered hand reaches into the tray from beyond the cubicle walls and whisks it away to be converted into morse code and sent along the wires.

When he slides back into his seat at the bar Sadie is alone. “Get all you needed?”

“Mm.” Sadie makes a non-committal noise. “I think I want to meet this guy.”

Oh, right. Most days John forgets that Sadie is relatively new to Outlaw life, she fits in so well. But her story, like most, is filled with tragedy and bitterness, a selfish desire to sate her hatred. For all that they like to disparage civilians as sheep, even sheep can turn into monsters.

“You know,” John says, watching the way Sadie taps the bartop, her free hand always near a knife, “I think you two would get along great.”

***

Three days later John is in the bath washing blood and gore out of his hair. Sadie’s bounty -- a Continental job, not government -- went bad, and they had to slaughter their way out of an ambush. The ‘wanted alive’ condition of the bounty was barely fulfilled as they raced their way to a medical safehouse on the outskirts of Caliban’s Seat, their bounty bleeding out of a gut wound all over the back of Sadie’s horse.

“Well,” pronounced Reverend Swanson, taking a long drag of his self-rolled cigarette. “He’ll live.”

John drooped in relief. Sadie had merely nodded.

“I won’t even charge you for the bath,” the Reverend said. His eyes were unfocused, dreamily staring off into the distance. He took another drag of his cig. “Go on. Blackwater HQ will wire your reward to Valentine.”

“Thanks, Reverend,” said John, and shuffled his way into a discrete side room with a steaming tub already prepared. Sadie did the same.

He heaves himself out of the water with a groan. Damn, he’s tired. Waiting for news of Arthur is maddening, his nerves tenser than a cat eyeing string. He isn’t even sure what he wants to hear: Arthur’s back with Dutch? Arthur’s back, but freelance? It was all a fluke and Arthur isn’t back at all?

When they arrive in Valentine his half of the bounty payment is already in his room, five neat stacks of ten Continental coins on the dresser by his bed. There’s also a telegram message.

HEARD THE NEWS STOP  
AM VISITING WEST ELIZABETH STRAWBERRY STAYING TWO WEEKS WOULD LIKE TO SEE YOU STOP  
H M

So John knocks on Sadie’s door, and the next day they set out for Strawberry.

***

“You old bastard!” John says, all but tackling Hosea for a hug. “You look great!”

“It’s the warm southern air.” Hosea’s voice, dry with his usual nasal undertone, soothes some tension in John that he wasn’t even aware he had. The man is dressed beautifully in an embroidered waistcoat with burnished silver buttons, a slim-cut jacket that falls neatly to hide the engraved ivory pistols at his hips, and dark pants tucked into knee-high boots. “Good for the lungs.”

“How’s Bessie?” John would normally ask about business, but Hosea’s iron-fisted lessons about manners left enough of an impact that John doesn’t dare flout them in his mentor’s face.

“Good, better than good! She’s doing well enough to all but put me out of work. You know, I taught her to throw knives on a whim and she went and pinned a man’s arm to the wall last month? Neat as a beetle on a card, smooth as butter. He was breaking the No Violence on Continental Grounds rule.”

John, who mostly remembers Bessie as a font of motherly concern, blinks. “That’s... good?”

“Of course, dear boy. And who’s this lovely lady next to you?”

“Mrs. Sadie Adler.” Sadie gives him her hand, which Hosea shakes. John breathes out a sigh of relief. If Hosea tried to be a gentleman and kiss her knuckles she might have just decked him. “Nice to meetcha.”

“Ah yes, John has mentioned you in his sparse letters. Hosea Matthews, at your service.”

They get pleasantries out of the way quickly, convening at the saloon. Strawberry, being a relatively new settlement and halfway between the Continental hubs of Blackwater and Valentine besides, only has an outpost presence for the Underworld. Hosea catches the bartender’s eye and slides a coin over as he raises three fingers.

“You’ve heard the news on Arthur?” Hosea says after they receive their drinks.

“Yeah. Was hoping you could tell me more. All we know is that he’s gone and killed some O’Driscolls. Apparently he’s got a feud with somebody associated with them?”

“Mm.” Hosea sips his whisky. “A man named Micah Bell. Nasty sonofabitch. Plays by Continental rules, but barely. Several of the Congress Council think he’s no good but there’s never been any concrete proof.”

“Okay.” That doesn’t sound too unusual, honestly. “How’d he get tangled up with Arthur? I thought Arthur was out. Like, _out_ out.”

“And that’s the mystery. Nobody who I’ve talked to knows.”

“So he’s not... coming back? Joining up with...”

“No, he’s not signing back on with Dutch. I asked.” He raises an unimpressed eyebrow at John’s sharp look. “Don’t you get yourself in a snit over my old friendships. I’ve known Dutch over thirty years. Even if we have our differences, I trust him when he says he didn’t draw Arthur back into the life.”

“Wait, Dutch _van der Linde?”_ says Sadie. “John Marston, you never goddamned told me you was on speaking terms with Dutch van der Linde.”

“‘Cause I’m not,” says John.

“Speaking terms, no,” Hosea agrees. “Though I don’t believe you’re on shooting terms yet either. Thankfully.”

John grunts. That’s not an argument he wants to revive; it was the closest John ever got to breaking off relations with Hosea. For all the evil Dutch has done, all the wrong, Hosea will always be able to forgive him. It’s a kind of love John knows well.

“So, Arthur.” John steers the conversation back on track. “You know where he’s been? Where he’s going?”

“Well, he retired up to Ambarino near Wapiti land. Did some favors for the Chief there, so I hear, became a friend of a friend of the tribe. Acted as a sort of intermediary between them and the army.”

“I thought he said he was gonna go straight and become a trapper.”

“That’s what he _said_ , certainly.” Hosea takes another drink of his whisky. “Arthur doesn’t always do what he says. Besides, he likes helping people. I’m glad he was able to find his footing instead of running away into the mountains to die.”

The words hit John like a blow to the diaphragm, punching all the air out of his chest. “You never said it was that bad.”

“Because there was nothing you could have done, John. You were out yourself, or trying to be. Dragging you back would have just pulled you into Arthur’s spiral. You two always were codependent like that.”

“We were _not_ \--” John begins, before Sadie downs her whole glass and slams it onto the table.

“You two boys sound like you got some personal business to catch up on. I’m going to go do my own thing for a bit. Hosea, nice to meetcha. John, I want to know everything you do about how the O’Driscolls are tied up in this tomorrow.” She pushes back her chair and strides out of the saloon before John can do any more than open his mouth to reply.

“A firecracker, ain’t she?” Hosea eyes the door. “How’d you fall in with her?”

“Got attacked by wolves, chased into a camp of O’Driscolls. Turns out it was her homestead and they’d killed her husband. Cleaned out the wolves _and_ the O’Driscolls while they were tangled up with each other, then she helped make sure I didn’t die of infection from these.” He gestures at the scars on his cheek.

“Ah,” Hosea acknowledges. “I was wondering about those.”

“Yeah, well. That’s the story.”

“I can certainly understand her antipathy for the O’Driscolls, then.”

John grunts. It’s Sadie’s business. She won’t want him airing her old laundry, or have him butting in on her feuds -- unless she asks for backup. Hosea seems to understand and drops the topic.

“Anyways, I don’t know much else. Arthur seems to be making his way south and west. He knows Colm is based here in West Elizabeth, so he might be trying to find him. Or maybe he’s just tracking Bell.”

“And you don’t know where Bell is? Or how he’s mixed up with the O’Driscolls?”

Hosea shakes his head. “He’s a slippery bastard. Must have some pretty good connections to escape the grapevine.”

“Anything you _can_ give me?”

“How about information on Colm’s next planned job?”

“Damn,” John coughs a little. “And you say you didn’t know nothing?”

“Said I didn’t know _much_.” Hosea smirks at him over the rim of his glass. “You’ve got to pay attention to the details, boy. Didn’t I teach you that?”

“I guess you did.” John salutes him. “So tell me about this job.”

***

Sadie is all for riding in guns a-blazin’ once it gets dark enough that the watch will be tired, but John thinks they might want a bit more of a plan than that. He picks irritably at his fingernails; being the voice of reason doesn’t sit well. Sadie is usually the brains of the outfit and John likes it that way.

Besides, John is a shit liar outside of the poker table. He can never keep a story straight in his head unless it’s pretty close to the truth already. Sadie is better but any sort of acting skill she has goes to hell when dealing with O’Driscolls, which John reckons is due to all the seething hatred. So really any sort of infiltration or trickery is out. John wishes Hosea still went out in the field -- he’d have had them all sitting around the O’Driscoll fire by now with half the camp laid out due to some laudanum in their stew.

“You satisfied, Marston?” Sadie hisses. “We’ve mapped their camp three times over by now.”

“Yeah, and we still don’t know why they’re all spooked. There’s only two of us, if we go down there and all them twitchy trigger fingers shoot us full of holes, how’s that gonna help, huh?”

“Yeah, well--” Sadie grunts, whipping around, and John barely catches a glimpse of a man-shaped shadow before the wind is knocked out of him. Something icy and hard is pressed to his temple: the muzzle of a revolver.

“Howdy,” drawls the man who has John in a chokehold. “Put the gun _down_ , miss.”

Sadie doesn’t put her gun down. “You put _your_ gun down, mister.”

The revolver digs a little harder into John’s skin. “I asked first.”

“D-damn it, Sadie,” John wheezes, sliding his hand as inconspicuously as he can toward the sheathed knife at his belt. “Listen to the man.”

Sadie catches the cue, backing up a bit to give them space. The man has gone very still at John’s side.

“Johnny Marston,” the man says, right in John’s ear, and John’s whole body seizes up like he’s been dunked in an icemelt river.

_“Arthur?”_

The man lets John go. He stumbles, drawing his gun, but all his attention is focused on catching a glimpse of the man’s face. It’s Arthur all right, looking older and tired, beard grown out longer than he used to keep it. John’s heart skips in his chest.

“Hell,” Arthur says. “It is you. What’re you doing here, Marston? I thought you ran off with a woman.” He eyes Sadie. “A different woman.”

“If it wouldn’t bring that whole pack of O’Driscolls down on us I’d shoot you right now,” Sadie growls.

“He don’t mean nothing by it,” John says. Already making excuses for Arthur, who could never defuse a situation by talking to save his life. “That’s Arthur Morgan. Arthur, this is Sadie Adler.”

Arthur finally raises his hands, letting his gun dangle from one finger as he keeps his palms up. “Charmed.”

Sadie keeps her revolver aimed for several long seconds, but in the end she huffs and slides it back into her holster. “I swear to God, Marston, every single man you’re acquainted with is an irredeemable asshole. Except that nice feller you introduced me to yesterday.”

“I’d be hurt by that remark, but you’re right,” says Arthur, and John can practically feel Sadie warming up to him. That ridiculous charisma. “You gonna put away your gun, boy, or am I gonna have to stand here like this all night?”

John blinks down at the revolver in his hand. Oh. Arthur does a fancy little twirl with his when he holsters his as well.

“What the hell are you doing here?” John blurts out.

“Killin’ O’Driscolls, what’s it look like? The hell are _you_ doing here?”

“The same,” Sadie declares.

“Looking for you,” John says, a beat behind. “...And killing O’Driscolls, I guess.”

“Grow a little spine, Marston,” Sadie sniffs.

“You know I got plenty of spine, woman--”

“All right, all right,” Arthur interrupts. “Argue it out after. We okay not to shoot each other when we go and do this?”

“Sure,” Sadie agrees. “Our plan was for me to go down there and have John cover for me, but if you’re willing to join up the three of us ought to be enough to take them straight.”

“Oh?” Arthur’s approving glance still makes John stand taller. “Keeping up your sharpshooter skills?”

“I’m probably better than you now, with how rusty you must be.” John lets his mouth move on automatic. “Been outta the game for a while, old man.”

A flicker of emotion flashes across Arthur’s face. “Yeah, guess we’ll see.”

Sadie snaps her fingers, impatient. “If y’all are done comparing dick sizes, lets go. I’ll take point. We’ll circle around the ridge and take them from cover, leapfrog our way up through those wagons and crates there to the barn.”

“Y’scoped the cabin?” Arthur’s voice is flat now, all business.

“Two men, should be sleeping. I figure we’ll be able to move our way to good cover before they’re a threat.”

Arthur nods sharply. “Matches my scout. All right, you lead.”

They crouch and make their way to the ambush point carefully. Arthur is somehow even more uncannily quiet than he was five years ago, moving through brush and dirt and gravel on silent feet. John feels like he’s making an unholy racket in comparison at every crunch under his boots.

“I’ll take the one on the right,” Sadie whispers when they’re in position. “The two of you go left. Ready? One, two...”

On three, she and John pop out of cover and shoot the sentries. Arthur is already darting forward to crouch behind a large rock, waiting for the hollering and crack of return fire to tell him where to shoot. He leans out and snipes a man with a rifle.

The whole thing is a bloodbath, of course. Sadie displays her usual suicidal lack of caution, charging out with her revolver until she runs out of shots before switching to a sawed off shotgun. Arthur yells something -- probably some variation of “Are you crazy!?” -- but John’s already deafened by gunfire. He and Arthur cover Sadie, picking off men as they move from rocks to crates to the planned wagons, killing as they go. One man, one bullet. Just like Arthur taught him.

Eventually the enemy shots cease. Sadie stands in the middle of the carnage, breathing hard, her face lit up with battle fever; she bares her teeth at them in a wild grin and gestures to the open door of the cabin. John looks instinctively at Arthur, who’s already turned away with a wave, going off to deal with the scattered fire that’s consuming one of the tents.

The cabin is clear. Sadie kicks an O’Driscoll body away from where it’s slumped over a dresser by the window, pulling it open to search through it. She comes up with a couple of faded photographs that match a family portrait on the wall. One of them is dated 1863.

“Old property,” Sadie says, flipping the other photos over. She stacks them neatly and puts them back in the dresser. “Guess the family got killed a couple years ago before the O’Driscolls moved in. Place doesn’t look too run down.”

John grunts. Neither O’Driscoll had anything worth keeping on them and it doesn’t feel right to loot what’s so clearly an already ravaged home. He stalks back outside, adrenaline still tingling at his fingertips.

Arthur has smothered the tent fire and is sorting looted goods into piles. Ammunition neatly stacked, medicine all together, miscellaneous goods off to the side. A separate pile for special items available to turn in at the Continental.

“John.” Arthur waves him over. “Come help me with this.”

As John approaches he sees that Arthur has also laid out bodies in neat rows in the darkness past the campfire. That too was due to utility, not respect. _Loot them as they lie,_ Arthur’s voice echoes in his mind. _But once you’re done, put ‘em away neat. Just like sorting piles, you want to know what you’ve already gone over._

Besides, burning the bodies is easier that way too.

“Arthur,” John says.

Arthur looks up. Shadows cover half his face, pooling in the sockets of his eyes and the hollows below his cheekbones, flirting coyly with the seam of his lips. There’s a smear of something, blood or dirt, across his forehead.

“You look...”

Arthur waits for John to finish the sentence, but John is at a loss for words. He wants to say a million things and can’t seem to voice any of them.

“You look like you got your face mauled by a wolf,” says Arthur.

John barks a laugh. “‘Cause I was.”

“No shit, really?” Arthur stands with a grunt, pacing forward. He was always a precise man, aware of his lethality and conscious of how to display it or fold it away. But now there’s a liquid sort of grace to his movement like a big mountain cat.

His calloused fingers are rough on John’s skin. John sucks in a thin breath, smelling the sharp tang of gunpowder over the leather of Arthur’s half-gloves. He lets Arthur tilt his chin and examine the scars on his face.

“Nasty,” Arthur says quietly. He’s close enough John can tell that he’s been chewing mint, that he must have smoked a cigarette in the past hour or two. Kissing close.

“Yeah,” John whispers. He sways forward.

Sadie stomps out of the cabin. Arthur lets go of John’s face and takes a smooth step backward, casually turning to examine the torn covering of a nearby wagon. John blinks, bereft.

“Y’all find anything interesting?” She comes up to the ring of firelight and surveys Arthur’s efforts. “Wow. Real professional of you.”

“What, did Marston never do this?” Arthur slants a look at him. “I see he ain’t using a lick of what he was taught.”

“Well generally we hunt bounties, not... all of this.” Sadie turns in a circle, arm raised to encompass the massacre. “Looting generally ain’t part of the job description.”

“Suppose it wouldn’t be much of a waste to leave it. Most of this is trash.” Arthur whistles and a moment later an enormous gold horse trots into the camp. Ignoring his own words, Arthur bends to tuck provisions, ammunition, and the whole pile of Continental-accepted items into his saddlebags before he mounts up right there and then. “Martson. Missus Adler.”

John actually lets him turn his horse around and clop two stops before he snaps out of his stupor. “Arthur, wait!”

The horse halts.

“We was looking for you, you asshole.” John jogs over and reaches for Arthur’s saddlehorn, then yelps and pinwheels backwards. The horse’s teeth snap shut a scant inch away from John’s sleeve. “What the fuck, control your devil horse, man!”

Arthur rides out the sidle and stamp of his mount with a gruff laugh, waiting for it to settle before leaning forward to pat the corded muscle of its neck. “Good boy, Buell.”

“I thought you liked ‘em sweet,” John grumbles.

“I like my mares sweet, sure,” Arthur smirks. “Stallions? I seem to end up with them mean an’ dumb, but loyal. It’s turned out well.”

John snorts like the horse Arthur just compared him to. “Whatever. Damn it, Arthur, we ain’t seen each other in five years and you’re just gonna ride away without a word? What the hell are you doing back here?”

Arthur taps a finger against his thigh. “You ought to know if you were out here looking for me.”

“Well I’d rather hear it from you.” Now that John’s brain is working again, he plays his trump card. “And so would Hosea.”

The horse shifts, sensing Arthur’s tension. “Hosea?”

“He’s in Strawberry. You gonna come along or not?”

Arthur lets his stillness be an answer. John whistles for his own horse, Sadie’s trotting up behind, and the three of them ride out of the O’Driscoll camp together.

***

John isn’t privy to Arthur and Hosea’s reunion. They arrive back in Strawberry about an hour after dawn. After Arthur gets his horse situated at the stables, he heads straight to knock at Hosea’s door. The two of them stare at each other in silence for a good half-minute before Arthur sweeps Hosea up into a hug; John sees the gleam of tears on Hosea’s cheeks before he turns his head away. They disappear into Hosea’s room.

Sadie opts for a bath. John still feels jittery, at loose ends now that his short term goal has been achieved. He and Arthur need to talk, or fight, or maybe fuck -- maybe all three, and maybe even at the same time. After a fruitless attempt at a nap he goes to lurk in a corner of the saloon, slowly making his way through a purchased plate of sausage and eggs. Real food, not canned rations.

Eventually Hosea and Arthur appear as well, the latter clean and shaved, dressed in a buckskin vest over a white striped shirt open at the top two buttons, framed with the fur-trimmed collar of his deep green scouting coat. John stares.

Arthur jostles his elbow as he slides into the chair next to John, smirking as John swears. Hosea is jawing with the man at the counter, seemingly content to gossip before ordering his own breakfast.

“Go and get your own,” John says when Arthur lifts the fork from his fingers, but lets him stab a piece of sausage. There’s not much left on his plate anyway. Arthur’s lips shine with grease as he chews.

“I see you two boys are getting on.” Hosea sinks into a seat holding two plates. He slides one across the table, which Arthur descends upon, and spills utensils onto the wood as well, which Arthur ignores. John grabs a new fork and steals a bite of Arthur’s eggs.

Arthur grunts. John’s about fit to explode.

“Why the hell are you here, Arthur,” he demands.

Arthur eats another bite of sausage.

 _“Arthur,”_ John says, and steals a whole sausage when Arthur goes to spear it. Arthur squints at him.

“Micah Bell,” Arthur says. “He killed my dog.”

John opens and closes his mouth.

Hosea points at him. “Lips together when you chew, John.”

“Are you goddamn kidding me,” John manages. “All this mess over a goddamn _dog?”_

Hosea shrugs, eloquently, with one shoulder. Arthur goes still, which should tip John off, but he’s never been the best at realizing when he’s pushed Arthur too far.

“That dog,” Arthur says very quietly, “was the last thing I had of my goddamn _son_.”

“Ah, shit.” John feels shame rise in him like the tide, a wave of nausea. “Sorry, Arthur. I didn’t know.”

Arthur sighs audibly through his nose. “‘S all right. I know you didn’t mean nothing by it.”

That kills the conversation pretty good. They make their way through the food in only slightly tense silence until Hosea claps his hands together and stands.

“Okay, boys,” he says. “A reunion like this is a cause for celebration! How do you feel about going fishing?”

“Uh,” John says weakly. He exchanges a glance with Arthur.

“That was not a request,” Hosea says. “Go on and get your poles. We are gonna have ourselves some bonding time.”

“Oh, great,” says Arthur. Hosea whaps him on the back of the head.

***

The fishing actually does turn out well, mostly due to Hosea’s efforts. He sets John and Arthur to competing, which has always worked to distract them, while the older man spins tales of what he and Bessie have been dealing with down in Armadillo.

“No,” John says, aghast at the story about the man who came into the Continental clinic and dropped his pants. “He just... let a feller do that? From a paper advertisement?”

“It takes all kinds, John,” Hosea says serenely.

“Yeah, but hiring a random man to castrate you?”

“Some people are into that, I guess.” Hosea makes a triumphant noise as his fishing rod dips. John turns to look at Arthur, who has his lips pursed.

“I can’t believe you’re goddamn laughing.” John presses his knees together.

“It’s not that funny,” Arthur acknowledges. “But you are. What the hell, you think a man’s gonna hop out of the bushes with a big pair of shears and cut your balls off? You look like you need to piss.”

“Don’t pick on John, Arthur,” Hosea says absently, still wrestling with his fishing pole.

“Sorry, Hosea,” Arthur replies, clearly on automatic, then grimaces. John lets himself smirk. Point to him.

They manage to bring back a good haul, most of which goes to the town butcher. Hosea takes his big bass and sweet-talks the saloon’s kitchen to cook them a nice fish dinner. Sadie joins them at the table.

“So?” she says bluntly. Her satiation after killing the camp of O’Driscolls seems to have vanished. Fire once again burns close under her skin. “Is there anything for me to do ‘round here, or am I gonna ride out on my own?”

“That camp was my last lead,” Arthur admits. “But given we screwed Colm’s job over but good, he’s bound to send some men after us. I’m hoping to use that to get some more information on Micah.”

“Well.” Sadie gives Arthur a squinty-eyed look of judgement. “Suppose I’ll stick around for a bit, then.”

Arthur tips his hat at her. “Pleasure to have you, Miss Adler.”

“Mrs.” Sadie corrects him.

“Mrs. Adler,” Arthur repeats.

“What a lovely display of basic social competence,” Hosea announces to the air. “I feel as if my years of labor have finally borne fruit. Let’s have a drink.”

Arthur rolls his eyes in tandem with John. Sadie glances between Hosea and the two of them. “Do I want to know?”

“Hosea acts like we was raised by wolves,” Arthur drawls.

“Which ain’t too far from the truth,” adds John.

“But since we was mostly raised by him, he has nobody to blame but himself.”

Hosea shakes his head sadly. “Where did I go wrong?”

“Could be when you taught me pickpocketing when I was fifteen,” Arthur suggests.

“When you taught me how to read off of bounty posters?” asks John.

“When you had me learnin’ sums by calculating our takes on cons,” says Arthur.

“How about--”

“Enough, enough!” Hosea raises his hands in defeat. He directs his woeful expression at Sadie. “Ungrateful, the both of them.”

Sadie snorts with genuine amusement. “You know, I think I like you fellers.”

Hosea picks up his glass. “I’ll toast to that!”

They drink.

***

Strawberry has a whole hotel’s worth of rooms, but John follows Arthur into his, stumbling over his clumsy feet. Arthur is equally loose from drink, friendly and touchy, swinging a heavy arm over John’s shoulders as they careen from a collision with the doorframe into the dresser.

“Oops.” Arthur steadies himself. John takes the chance to eel his way closer, to press knee to chest with Arthur’s warm body, feeling the solid physical weight of it after years of absence.

“John?” Arthur sounds surprised. _Idiot_ , John thinks, half fond and half despairing.

“Arthur,” John mumbles into Arthur’s coat. “Missed you.”

He can feel Arthur’s chest heave in a sigh. A big hand comes up to tangle in John’s hair, knocking his hat carelessly to the floor.

“I did too,” Arthur admits. “Even though I shouldn’t have.”

John bites him for that: the habitual self depreciation, the constant judgement of his own self. Arthur jerks back and swears, tripping and falling half on the bed. John crawls over him and hauls him further onto the sheets as Arthur hisses and clutches at his barked shins.

“Arthur.” John licks Arthur’s neck in apology, nuzzling the skin there, smelling soap and sweat.

“Jesus, John,” Arthur groans. He must not be that mad, though, because he busies himself undoing John’s gunbelt and yanks the tails of his shirt from his waistband. John pants, already hard. He feels like he’s been on the edge ever since that moment in the dark in the O’Driscoll camp, ever since he heard Arthur’s name out of a stranger’s mouth in Valentine.

John is more than half naked before Arthur even shrugs out of his coat. He straddles Arthur’s waist with his trousers shoved halfway down his thighs, shirt tossed who knows where. Lets Arthur rub his palms over his stomach and pectorals, shivering at the scrape of them over his nipples and the heat in Arthur’s eyes. His ears burn.

“Y’always were pretty.” Arthur’s voice is a low rumble. John can’t help but arch his back to push further into Arthur’s hands, flushing in awareness at the picture he makes, debauched and desperate for it, easy. Arthur brings one hand up to cup John’s jaw and runs his thumb over his lips. John sucks it in without hesitation.

He nearly gags when Arthur pushes in and down, trapping his tongue and scraping a nail along his gums. Arthur’s eyes are narrowed when John looks, slitted like a cat’s over a kill, meanly satisfied. The shock of it scores down John’s spine and feeds the fire in his belly.

A sound escapes when Arthur pulls his thumb free. He shivers as Arthur traces spit over his chin and neck, ends up resting over the dip of his collarbone to pressure on his windpipe.

“How d’you want it?”

John circles his fingers around the base of his cock and squeezes. His voice sounds thready past the pulse beating in his ears. “Want you to fuck me.”

“Yeah?” Arthur’s hand is big enough to span over the back of his neck. He pulls John down to murmur sweetly in his ear. “You want me to fuck your mouth or your ass, John?”

John’s moan catches in his throat, stoppered by the pressure of Arthur's thumb. His hips rock down against the columns of Arthur’s thighs. “My-- my mouth,” he stammers.

That gets John an approving hum, Arthur’s fingers moving from John’s neck to fist in his hair. Arthur undoes the buttons of his trousers left-handed. John watches as Arthur fishes his cock out of his fly, mouth wet with want until Arthur gives him a little yank. Another aborted moan dies in John’s throat.

“G’wan,” Arthur says, broad and rolling over the vowels.

John lets go of his cock, already aching, and drops to his elbows. Despite Arthur’s bath, a day in the sunshine has left its mark and John can tell as he rubs his nose in the damp crease of Arthur’s thigh, chin nudged up against his balls. He breathes in deep to smell Arthur’s musk and the sharper bite of precome that leaves a wet smear on his cheek.

Arthur’s thighs flex. The rough denim of his jeans rubs against John’s bare torso hard enough John will probably have a rash tomorrow. His cock skids along the side of John’s face. “C’mon, boy.”

John licks at the skin of Arthur’s hip, salt-sweet, before lifting to fit his lips over the head of his cock. Arthur groans immediately, deep and indulgent, pushing his head down until John can feel it past where he pushed his thumb before, right on the edge of choking him. He whines and pushes his tongue against the vein along the underside, keeps his lips pursed around the shaft.

“Y’good?”

John tries to take him deeper in answer. Arthur’s hand clenches and pulls his hair hard enough to hurt before letting go, moving instead to clutch at John’s shoulder. John whines. He gropes blindly until he catches Arthur’s other wrist and brings it to his throat.

“God, you look good like that,” Arthur hisses, pressing his fingers to feel himself through the confines of John’s flesh. “Swallow, yeah. Make it tight for me, boy.” He thrusts up and John chokes, tight like Arthur wants. Doesn’t relent even when the tears well up in John’s eyes and spill down his cheeks, when John just lets himself go slack and loose and the drool run down his chin. He can barely breathe, toes curled so hard they’re cramping, hips humping Arthur’s shin and probably chafing his dick raw. It hurts but he doesn’t care, he’ll come if Arthur praises him one more time, if Arthur tells him he can.

John sputters when Arthur releases, coughing as Arthur pulls him off his dick. His lungs seize in a silent scream as Arthur grips his cock hard enough to hurt and jerks him, fast, too much. He comes with his face a mess and his lips too numb to speak, black spots swimming in front of his eyes.

“Shh, shh.” He drifts as Arthur cleans him off with -- he cracks an eye open blurrily -- Arthur’s own shirt. There’s grey in Arthur’s chest hair now, sprinkled in among the blonde. Arthur continues to make soothing noises as he strips them both bare, the same sort of thing he’d do with a spooked horse. Normally John would take offense but he likes it too much to protest just then.

“Hey Arthur,” John mumbles as Arthur rolls him under the covers.

“Mm?”

“Don’ leave me again, ‘kay?”

Arthur pauses, then settles in against him.

“Sure,” he promises. “But I wasn’t the one who left first, last time.”

John isn’t listening anymore. He slides cleanly into sleep, lulled by the steady beat of Arthur’s heart.

***

“So,” John says, adjusting the brim of his hat as he sights toward the horizon. “Where are we heading next?”

“That way, I reckon,” says Arthur. Both John and Sadie follow the line of his pointing arm. There’s dust rising on the trail, heralding a posse of riders.

“Well.” Sadie sits up in her saddle and bares her teeth. “Let’s ride, boys!”

John laughs, spurring his horse into a gallop as he draws his repeater. It’s a good day to die.

**Author's Note:**

> The [castration story](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-man-arrested-after-allegedly-performing-botched-castration-surgery-n1044586) is real! My friend who works at a hospital was telling me about it...
> 
> Anyways I had A Lot Of Thoughts about backstory for this fusion verse and barely used any of it... weh. The whole point was to reunite Arthur and John but all my thoughts on Dutch (he's on the Council! he has A Past with Hosea + Our Boys!!) just never got a chance to materialize lol. Oh well.
> 
> [plingokat](https://twitter.com/plingokat) @ twitter


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